Peace

[RiverNotch]

RN

RiverNotch wrote: "when I imagine those first three lines without any guessing"

As you already know what you mean, why would you have to guess? However your readers do not know what you mean and they would have to guess. What you say they mean is not the first thought that comes to me when I read it. As for symbolism, it was an art movement in Europe. I forget the years. Symbolism simply means the use of symbols. Saying this is like that as you do is not symbolism. I thought maybe you were referring to the French Symbolism movement of the latter half of the 19th century. However-

Baudelaire was probably the best known of the French symbolism movement. Here are two examples from one of his poem "Anywhere Out of this World".


"I look and see myself angelic! I die and love
—Let the window be art, mysticism,—
To be reborn, wearing my dream as a crown,
In that previous sky where Beauty flowered!"

                           -----

"But alas, here below is master: its spell
Nauseates me even unto this safe haven,
And the impure vomiting of Stupidity
Forces me to hold my nose before the blue."

Much use of symbols here, but except for the second line the rest seem attached to something defined, the most obvious are:

myself angelic
dream as a crown
impure vomiting of Stupidity

As this seems to have little to do with your poem, or maybe I'm not seeing it, that you say you are using symbolism bypasses me. Sorry, I'm not good at guessing.

Dale

I'm sort of afraid of giving it away, but anyway, I thought symbolism, even of the 19th century kind (from which this was primarily derived, yes), didn't need to be explicit about the symbolism? Granted, I haven't read that much symbolist poetry, and I don't really go out of my way to study this, but of what poetry by Stephane Mallarme and Arthur Rimbaud I've read so far, even if they use certain pieces of sense in symbolizing other objects in their poems, the whole thing their poems suggest still seem well-hidden. I note, for one, Mallarme's Toast, which doesn't seem to say anything about its actual topic, the topic beneath the whole image of the seascape.

"Nothing, this foam, virgin verse
Depicting the chalice alone:
Far off a band of Sirens drown
Many of them head first.

We sail, O my various
Friends, I already at the stern,
You at the lavish prow that churns
The lightning’s and the winters’ flood:

A sweet intoxication urges me
Despite pitching, tossing, fearlessly
To offer this toast while standing

Solitude, reef, and starry veil
To whatever’s worthy of knowing
The white anxiety of our sail."

Although perhaps "virgin verse" is the one thing that defines the poem's true subject; nevertheless, that's one word, and the title of this current poem (Peace) pretty much follows this same mode of hinting.